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New World

New Management

World Business Forum


E X E C U T I V E S U M M A RY 2 0 1 0

Experience A ct ion I d e a s Inspiration

October 5-6, 2010 | Radio City Music Hall® | New York City
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This executive summary was prepared by business analysts from


ExecuNet: a private executive membership (www.execunet.com).

Contributing were Lauryn Franzoni, executive editor; Robyn Greenspan,


editor-in-chief; Joseph Daniel McCool, senior contributing editor; and
Jeffrey Thompson, executive community coordinator. Since 1988,
ExecuNet has helped connect nearly one-half million chief and
senior-level executives to the people, opportunities and expertise
they need to be successful – in their leadership roles and in their careers.
Table Of
Contents
4.
Introduction
6. 22.
JIM COLLINS STEVE LEVITT
Sustaining Great Results Freakonomics

8. 24.
JACK WELCH JOSEPH STIGLITZ
Management Economy

10. 26.
BILL MCDERMOTT AL GORE
Winning in the New Reality Global Affairs

12. 28.
CARLOS BRITO A.G. LAFLEY
Building a Performance Culture Customer Centric Growth

14. 30.
CHARLENE LI RENÉE MAUBORGNE
Social Networks Strategy

16. 32.
MARTIN LINDSTROM VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN
Marketing Innovation

18. 34.
JOSEPH GRENNY NANDO PARRADO
Influence Crisis Management

20. 36.
DAVID GERGEN JAMES CAMERON
Leadership Creativity
4

World Business Forum


In October 2010, business
T his year’s Forum took place in the context
of the new challenges facing business in
leaders gathered from all over this new era. The agenda accordingly focused
on three broad themes:
the world to participate in
the seventh annual edition
• Economy, Trends, Change.
of the World Business Forum Understanding the new global context
in New York City. Bringing in which businesses operate

together a remarkable lineup • Leadership, Performance, People.


Creating and leading a culture of achievement
of some of the brightest and
most influential thought • Strategy, Innovation, Communication.
Reinventing management fundamentals
leaders on the planet, the to drive results
Forum once again proved
to be an incredible learning
experience offering both
insight and inspiration in
equal measure.
5

October
5-6 2010 Radio City ®
Music Hall
New
York
City

Day 1 Day 2
The opening session featured a dynamic pre- Day 2 kicked off with two contrasting economists.
sentation from Jim Collins revealing the secrets First up was Steve Levitt – bestselling author of
behind enduring companies. He was followed Freakonomics – whose entertaining presentation
by Jack Welch in typically fiery form, offer- looked at the lessons business can learn from eco-
ing candid insights on topics ranging from nomics and vice versa. Then came Nobel Prize
management, to the economy to politics. winner Joseph Stiglitz in conversation with Carol
Martin Lindstrom had the audience captivated Massar of Bloomberg TV, offering his predictions
with his entertaining and revealing presenta- on the future prospects for the global economy.
tion of the power of neuromarketing, while INSEAD’s Renée Mauborgne and Tuck’s Vijay Go-
Charlene Li discussed the implications for or- vindarajan gave their insights on strategy and in-
ganizations of the growth of social networks. novation, while A.G. Lafley discussed his applica-
Carlos Brito, the Brazilian CEO of Anheuser- tion of open innovation during his time as CEO
Busch InBev, talked about how his company’s at P&G. Former Vice President Al Gore gave an
performance culture plays such an important impassioned speech about the need for urgent
role in its success, while SAP co-CEO Bill Mc- action to curb climate change, while plane crash
Dermott gave his insights on doing business in survivor Nando Parrado had the audience on its
the new reality. To finish the day bestselling feet with his incredibly emotional tale of survival
author Joseph Grenny revealed his six sources in the most extreme circumstances. The event
of influence before David Gergen, advisor to closed on a high with James Cameron, the world’s
four US Presidents, gave his insights on to- most commercially successful film director dis-
day’s new leadership challenges. cussing the importance of leadership and creative
vision in any successful enterprise.

What follows serves as a record of these two unique and thought provoking days.
L E A D E R S H I P P E R F O R M A N C E P E O P L E
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JIM COLLINS
Sustaining
Great Results
Early Diagnosis and
Intervention Leads to leaders to have a special brand of humility and
extreme ambition for the cause – not themselves.
Organizational Longevity
Truly great leaders “have the guts to cut off

“T hose who achieve success are not bound by your own arm if it has cancer.” He cites CEOs
their own story; if you want to predict the fu- Darwin Smith, Kimberly-Clark Corporation,
ture, you create it,” said Dow Jones & Company Anne Mulcahy, Xerox, and Herb Kelleher,
CEO Les Hinton introducing leadership guru Jim Southwest Airlines, as examples of those who
Collins at the World Business Forum. Business is were willing to make that sacrifice “with the
what’s ahead, not behind, yet Collins’ research in stoic will to do whatever it takes to make their
Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall looks enterprises truly great.”
back to determine the characteristics that give
companies staying power. Stage 2-Undisciplined pursuit of more: “Ev-
erybody loves you for your overreaching until you
fall” said Collins, warning that great enterprises are
Collins equates the demise of a company to de-
more likely to die of indigestion than starvation.
clining health from disease. Symptoms become
increasingly evident and recovery is possible —
Collins cites Packard’s law, named after David
until Stage 5, where the condition is terminal.
Packard, the founder of Hewlett-Packard: “If you
allow growth in revenues, growth in scale, growth
in new adventures to exceed your ability to have
The Five Stages of an enough of the right people in the key seats to ex-
Unhealthy Company ecute on that growth brilliantly, you will fall.”

Stage 1-Hubris born of success: “Bad deci- Stage 3-Denial of risk and peril: Never mistake
sions taken with good intentions are still bad faith for facts, as the optimist is at risk of dying of
decisions,” said Collins, and the antidote is for a broken heart.

Collins on Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall
“The answer could not be circumstance. It is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and
discipline. We became fascinated with how great enterprises stumble and how the mighty fall. We
wanted to understand how this happens, and it was scary how far they fell.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
7
Collins used real-life, controversial cases to back up
this truth. For example, a prisoner of war is sub-
jected to extensive torture. Admiral James Stock- What you are
dale told Collins he survived when others didn’t be- passionate
cause he was a realist who didn’t rely on false hope. Hedgehog about
The Admiral’s message is known as The Stockdale
Paradox: “This is a very important lesson. You must
never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end
— which you can never afford to lose — with the
discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your What you What
current reality, whatever they might be.” can be drives your
best in the economic
Stage 4-Grasping for salvation: Even with the world at engine
aid of a heroic leader on a white horse or a game-
changing magic bullet, many companies still fail in
this stage. The antithesis, said Collins, is build-
ing a culture of discipline, by consistently push- Stage 5-Capitulation to irrelevance or death: Com-
ing in an intelligent direction without stopping. panies can fall into late stage 4 and come back when
“There’s not one big push, but overnight successes leaders emerged and broke the cycle of despair, but
are about 20 years in the making.” you cannot come back from stage 5, warned Collins.
“Would we leave an unfillable hole if we left the plan-
Using the three circles with the discipline to look et? If you don’t have the answer, you will go away.”
inside and focus efforts, find what you can be the
“best in the world at it or leave it for others.”
Collins´ checklist to assess organizational and per-
sonal priorities and to then get them in alignment:

1| Do your diagnostics.
2| Don’t focus on your career; focus on building a
pocket of greatness at every step.
Meet the Speaker 3| How many key seats are on your bus? What
percentage is filled with right people? What
are you going to do to raise that percentage?
Jim Collins studies how enduring com-
4| Double your questions to statements ratio in the
panies attain superior performance
next year.
and longevity. Fortune magazine has
5| The first question is: How is our world changing
described him as one of the most in- and what are the brutal facts? What’s on
fluential management thinkers alive, your brutal facts inventory list?
and his work has been featured in 6| Turn off your electronic gadgets and create white
many prominent journals and busi- space – one day every two weeks.
ness publications. Jim has authored 7| Create a “stop doing” list. We can only manage
our time, not our work.
or co-authored four books, including
8| Get inside your personal hedgehog.
the classic BUILT TO LAST, a fixture
9| Stop giving titles. The right people for key seats
on the Bloomberg BusinessWeek understand they do not have a job; they
best seller list for more than six years. have responsibilities.
His most recent book, How the Might 10| Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for at
Fall: And Why Some Companies Never least 15 to 25 years in the future.
Give In, was published in 2009.
S T R AT E G Y I N N O VAT I O N C O M M U N I C AT I O N
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JACK WELCH
Management:
Fundamentals
and Achieving Success

Being Realistic

W hen lackluster performance and a consistent


deficit of proven results confront your orga-
nization –regardless of the market you serve – leaders
have to take action, stick to their convictions and be
willing to make the tough decisions to get ahead.

“We’d all like the world to be just the way we like it,”
said Welch, who during his 20 years as chairman and
CEO of GE transformed the company into a power-
house and increased GE market share by $387 billion.

When the chips are down, be it because of the


economy or some other challenge, an organiza-
tion might see its customers complaining, its you are, the more abrasive you are. You have to
competitors charging ahead with new offerings anticipate the world being worse for you than
and underperforming employees bringing other it appears in the current moment,” Welch said.
people down in terms of morale and productivity. That last part may be what’s required to force
tough decisions about people.
Famous for his insistence that GE’s underper-
formers be moved out of the organization, Welch The Importance of Talent and
said, “You have to see employees straight on. You
have to be candid, and you can’t hope that Joe or Leadership Development
Cynthia will get better,” he said. Sometimes, those
lessons reveal, “The difference between candor These days, Welch said, he sees leadership de-
and abrasiveness is pretty close. The higher you velopment rating pretty low on the corporate
are, the more candid you can be. The lower priority list. But it shouldn’t be that way be-

Welch on Developing Talent


“My main role as CEO was developing talent. The team that fields the best talent wins. That’s in
baseball, football, life and business. Business is a game. If you don’t suit up the best team, you don’t
have a prayer. In the end, it’s what it’s all about.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
9


cause when you get the best players, you win.
What gets in the way of that mandate, so of- Your job is to celebrate the
ten, he added, are day-to-day operations and winners. You’ve got to
leaders’ insecurity about bringing on the best
talent. Great leaders promote and hire people celebrate success. Some of
who are smarter than they are.
the bottom 10 percent finds
Reflecting on the succession process he helped success somewhere else.
to orchestrate before his departure from GE,
Welch said that HP’s board “has committed sins” If one of your values is
and not fulfilled its “primary role:” to prepare teamwork, and you’ve
the next generation of leadership. “Where the
hell was the leadership development? Who are got somebody who is not
these board members?” Welch asked.
participating in teamwork,
Part of the reason he was known for GE’s perfor- you’ve got to take them out.”
mance measurement of employees was because
it conflicted with the approach so many other
companies take, Welch said. “People spend more
time trying to make the bottom 10 percent okay Welch´s Leadership Skills
than celebrating the top 20 percent [of per-
formers],” Welch said. Transfer to Education
These business leadership examples would be
equally powerful if applied to education, Welch
said, recommending that the education system
focus in on how it can deliver better student

Meet the Speaker outcomes by reducing the influence of unions


and taking action against chronically underper-
forming teachers.
Jack Welch´s management innova-
tions made him the most admired Welch, who recently launched the Jack Welch
CEO in the world. During his 20 Management Institute that helps advance online
education and teaching courses on leadership,
years as Chairman and CEO of GE,
hiring, firing and other management essentials,
he transformed the company into said that to fix the U.S. education system, we have
a powerhouse and increased GE´s to challenge the tenure system, reward teachers
market value by $387 billion. Welch’s on merit, not shy away from paying superior
accolades include “Manager of the teachers a lot more money, and effectively weed
Century” by Fortune magazine, “Most out the worst teachers.
Admired CEO of the past 20 years”
by Chief Executive and the “World’s “I would make education look like some of the
charter schools where exciting people come to
Greatest Leader” by Fast Company.
work; they are rewarded and cheered for their
Welch is the author of several books,
work and respected by everyone, and the stu-
including #1 Wall Street Journal and dents are the products and not the teachers,”
international bestseller Winning. Welch said.
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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BILL McDERMOTT
Winning in the
New Reality
Getting to the right answer for your enterprise
is critical, McDermott said, but the way you get
there is also very reflective on your capacity to
reach new business objectives and markets.

Back to the Basics:


It´s About People
Putting people first changes everything, McDer-
mott said. “This soft stuff is the real stuff. It’s all
about the people,” he said, reminding the dele-
gates to the 2010 World Business Forum that “the
best leaders hire over their heads every time.”
McDermott said the best leaders relish looking
across the table and knowing that the team he or
she has surrounded themselves with is more tal-
ented and more qualified than they are, and that’s
Your Business in the Global the high-octane talent edge that drives SAP’s
competitive advantage.
Economy

F rom the eyes of Bill McDermott, co-CEO


and member of the executive board of SAP,
a leading global provider of business software,
Putting the customer at the center of everything
you deliver in the market is also a critical con-
sideration. Effectively segmenting your market is
the world looks a lot different today than it did a key factor in business success. Don’t be afraid
just before the global financial crisis. to take on new rivals, he said, but make sure you
know the customer and connect with that cus-
Major shifts in the global economy continue to tomer in new and different ways.
unfold and reverberate. The world has moved


from the G8 economic powers to the G20.
China continues to increase its influence on The best run businesses
global supply chains and industries. “The global
change is not uncertainty… it’s certain, it’s real,
run with real time insights,
it’s structural and it’s big,” McDermott said. they get the information to
Now more than ever before, you need a com- the worker, on the handheld
pelling vision for your business. And a cogent where they want it. They can
answer to this question: Why do you matter in
the world and why should people care? make real time decisions.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
11
Leading Efficiently:
Meet the Speaker Focus on Results
Bill McDermott is co-CEO and a Of course, in today’s business climate, it’s hard to
member of the Executive Board of leverage talent and market segmentation without
unleashing the power of information, McDer-
SAP, the world’s leading provider
mott explained. “The best run businesses run
of business software. McDermott
with real time insights, they get the information
oversees the company’s strategic to the worker, on the handheld where they want
business activities relative to all cus- it. They can make real time decisions,” he added.
tomer operations, including sales, In meetings, McDermott noted, he has no in-
consulting, services, and ecosystem terest in reporters. “We want leaders who make
activities. During his tenure, SAP the news,” he said. To make big things happen,
has delivered unparalleled growth in he said, stop being redundant. Focus on results.
“Start with the vision and the strategy – that’s
market share, revenue and customer
your true north – and you constantly refine it, but
satisfaction in key markets. McDer-
focus on execution,” McDermott said.
mott is a member of several external
boards, and is an active community When the world around you is changing at an
leader and advocate for corporate accelerating pace, as it is today, McDermott
social responsibility. said, what matters is being true to yourself,
never forgetting where you come from, and get-
ting better every day you live. “Do what leaders
do,” he said. “Go out there and lead!”

How to Motivate a Team According to McDermott

“Nothing motivates teams more than winning. It’s the biggest force multiplier you have.
Success is a force multiplier like no other. Good leaders come in all sizes and shapes –
what they have in common is followers. They set high expectations, are resolute in the face
of adversity, and when others say it can’t be done, they make it happen.”
L E A D E R S H I P P E R F O R M A N C E P E O P L E
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CARLOS BRITO
Building a
Performance Culture
Dream - People - Culture

A ccording to Carlos Brito it’s not uncommon to


hear people refer to a company’s successes or
failures the same way one would talk about a sports
team. Both require a dream for success, being com-
posed of the right people and having them rally
around the dream, and then creating a culture of
ownership. Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev,
reminded World Business Forum delegates these are
the three elements that have been critical to building
a high-performance culture at AB InBev.

Dream
The first thing that needs to be thought about
is that companies are formed by people. This
is something Brito says many people forget. “If
Meet the Speaker the people in a company all went in different
directions, the company wouldn’t be able to
move forward,” he reminded. “Our company
Carlos Brito is CEO of Anheuser-Busch
has to have a dream…to be the best beer com-
InBev, the leading global brewer and pany in a better world.”
one of the world´s top 5 consumer
product companies. A consumer-cen- “Dreaming small or dreaming big takes the
tric, sales-driven organization with ap- same energy, so dream big,” he encouraged.
proximately 116,000 employees in 23 Referring again to sports, Brito said he believes
countries, Anheuser-Busch InBev man- the analogy of a high jumper is relevant when
ages well over 200 brands and holds setting your company dream and the expecta-
tions of people. No matter how high the bar is
the number one or number two posi-
set for a high jumper, the athlete gets just high
tion in 19 key markets. A Brazilian citi- enough to clear it. The same could be said for
zen, Brito holds a degree in Mechanical that of any corporate department or team. “It’s
Engineering from the Federal University about the coach putting pressure on the athlete.
of Rio de Janeiro and an MBA from We should never be afraid to test the limits. Keep
Stanford University. raising the bar to dream, and be public about it.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
13

“ Dreaming small or dreaming


big takes the same energy,
so dream big.” Culture
It’s mission critical to create a culture of owner-
People ship. “You want people to feel that they own the
business,” Brito advised, because “as a leader,
“You have to worry about getting the best peo- you’re more likely to think ‘If I’m an owner, fail-
ple,” Brito said. “Great people attract other ure is not an option.’” Brito used the common at-
great people and challenge them.” Similarly, titude toward a rental car to illustrate his point:
mediocre people attract mediocre people. He Renters tend to express more recklessness in a
encourages leaders not to be afraid to hire rental car than they would in their own car. After
individuals who you think with training and all, they will have to pay to fix the scratch or dent
time, might be better than you. He also be- on their own car.
lieves you need to spend time getting to know
your people. “You don’t want your employees to treat their job
or their company like a rental,” Brito said. “Creat-
“Don’t leave it to HR alone; it’s your respon- ing that sense of ownership will ensure that when
sibility,” he said. Having and keeping the right an employee makes a decision, it will be done in
people is something with which Brito has the company’s best interest, not necessarily the
plenty of experience. After multiple acquisi- employee’s.”
tions and mergers, he’s been able to identify
the one difference between his company and People and dreams can be combined to form a
the newly acquired one. It’s the Dream-Peo- powerful ownership culture that will also prevent
ple-Culture platform. taking short cuts. “Building a company takes time,
brick by brick. There are no shortcuts to effectively
If you hire and train right, competitors can’t help you build a performance culture,” Brito re-
duplicate your business. “The difference in minded. “Instead of developing their own people,
what you say and what you do is what makes the many companies hire from the market almost all
difference,” Brito explained, “Making the right the time. This is a mistake. Developing your own
decision isn’t always the easy decision.” people is key.”

What Would You Do?


During his discussion, Brito recalled an instance when he had the chance to promote one of two staffers.
One had been with the company twenty years, and the other had been with the company for only two.
The one with seniority was widely liked across the company though had not, within his career, done any-
thing truly outstanding. The more recently hired employee possessed a much more desirable skill set and
had done more for the company, but was not as widely known among the staff. The executive wanted
a high performance culture and had a difficult decision to make between what was easy and what may
generate better performance. What would you do?
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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CHARLENE LI
Social Networks and
Creating Winning Social
Media Strategies
Meet the Speaker
Charlene Li is an independent thought
Leading Followers leader and analyst on emerging tech-

“T he key to creating winning strategies in social


media is first to give up control,” Charlene Li,
leading analyst of social technologies, told World
nologies, with a specific focus on
social technologies, interactive me-
dia, and marketing. She is also the
Business Forum delegates. “You need to give up
co-author of Groundswell: Winning
control but still be in command.”
in a World Transformed by Social
First, leaders must realize that social media Technologies, a business bestseller.
is a lot more than just Facebook, said Li, also Charlene is one of the most frequent-
author of the bestselling books, Groundswell and ly-quoted industry analysts and was
Open Leadership. She then advised the audience to named by AdAge as one of its Top
make sure they have a direction that everyone Women to Watch in 2008 and by
understands and will follow. “The only way to NowPublic as one of the 50 most in-
get people to follow you is if you lead them.”
fluential people in Silicon Valley.
Leading followers sounds simple, but in social
reality can be quite complex. The three ways to
do this successfully, Li explained, are through:
What happens when someone writes about a
1. Strategy negative experience with your company? Dell’s
2. Leadership response led by CEO Michael Dell was to blog
3. Preparedness boldly. Dell posted a photo and blog called
the “Flaming Notebook.” After the bold title,
the author explained “beyond what you see,
Using Social Media to Your we don’t have enough data to know what hap-
Company´s Benefit pened.” By calling attention to the dangerous
battery problem rather than ignoring it, the
Case in point? Dell’s use of social media to tem- company explained the problem and how they
per a groundswell of criticism when a video of were fixing it. They carried the potential me-
a Dell laptop self-combusting in a conference dia disaster through with posting after posting,
room became a YouTube hit. each step of the way as they identified the prob-
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
15


lem (the battery) and how they would address it.
“Dell was focused on relationships,” Li ex- No relationships are perfect.
plained. “They realized what these technologies
do better than anything else; they help manage Encourage people to take
relationships. By launching this blog the way
they did, Dell was saying this relationship was
risks, create internal ‘sand-
one worth having.” boxes’ where they can learn,
grow slowly and think about
Making a Business
Relationship Personal the strategy you can achieve.”

Li likens the company to customer relationship to any


you might have in business or in life. “You can’t con- Value Isn´t Always Tangible
trol the relationship with your spouse or partner, so
why in business do we think we should? In the world Regardless of the success metrics in any organiza-
of business it really is about relationships.” tion, Li says the value of the social message can be
measured. After asking the audience to shake hands
Best Buy CEO Barry Judge shockingly blogged with the person on the left, she opined, “What was
“I’m sick to my stomach when I think of the cus- the value, the ROI, of that handshake? Can you
tomer trust we just wrecked” after his marketing calculate the ROI of being here? You know there’s
department blundered an email campaign. But value that you can’t put a number on, so you’d bet-
with the history of humility and trust he had built ter be asking the right question.”
since his first post (“Here is the first post. Phew,
glad it’s over”) his readers knew he valued their re- But how to prepare to succeed? Li says you have to be
lationship with him and the company. disciplined in your approach, consistent in the em-
powerment of the social team and willing to fail. “No
“Leadership is more than just your position on the relationships are perfect,” Li reminded. “Encourage
org chart,” Li said. “Anyone can be influential with people to take risks, create internal ‘sandboxes’ where
these tools.” Salesforce.com has a new Twitter-like they can learn, grow slowly and think about the strategy
product and calls the people in the company using you can achieve.”
it, the “Chatterati.” “This internal social group is
the connective tissue in the organization,” Li not-
ed. “There is real value being created as people use
these tools to get the job done.”
How to Execute a Successful Social
Media Strategy

To put a social strategy into practice, Li


advises leaders to first select a strate-
gic goal and apply the social tools to an
area where they can have real meaning.
“No one person or department owns
the customer. So you’ll have to choose
where this should be to begin. Choose
where it makes the most sense.”
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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MARTIN LINDSTROM
Marketing:
The Role the Brain Plays
in Buying Decisions

“ Find an emotional connection to


a brand. Every ad, everything
you do should be able to survive
without the logo. Otherwise, we
can’t cut through the clutter.”

“We are exposed to two million television com-


mercials by the age of 65,” Lindstrom said. Yet,
“How many of you remember three television
commercials you saw yesterday?” He added that 15
percent of what we do every day appeals to the con-
“How many of you make highly scious part of the brain, but 85 percent does not.
irrational decisions every day?”
Lindstrom´s Modern
W ith that, marketing visionary and, one of
TIME’s world’s most influential people of
2009, Martin Lindstrom, captures the curios-
Marketing: Where Science
ity of the global business leaders. He believes and Advertising Meet
people can greatly benefit from understanding
how to build a brand by playing to the non-con- That’s why Lindstrom, author of Buyology – Truth
scious parts of the consumer’s brain. and Lies About Why We Buy, believes marketers must
combine science with advertising, to satisfy con-
Whether we’re knocking on wood, checking our sumers’ desire for instant gratification and ac-
voice or email message systems without being knowledge that it is “the non-conscious part of
prompted by an alert, or reaching for the news- the brain that is really in charge.”
paper that’s second from the top in the news-
paper rack, the majority of everything we do In order to understand what a certain brand means to
every day appears to the non-conscious part of the consumer, Lindstrom advocated looking closely at
the brain. What may be even more interesting, brain activity so marketers can gauge how a consumer
Lindstrom said, is that, “When we build brand reacts to the imagery of their brands, how the con-
today, we totally overlook that fact.” sumer actually uses it, and which images don’t even
Executive Summary | WBF 2010

grated with your brand, your company name


17
and its typical marketing imagery? Or are
Meet the Speaker you so dependent on that logo that without
it your brand means nothing? The future of
Martin Lindstrom is the author of branding is moving toward the engagement
of non-conscious [symbols].”
Buyology-Truth and Lies About Why
We Buy, a New York Times and Wall The challenge for marketers moving for-
Street Journal bestseller. The book ward, Lindstrom opined, is to connect with
unveils the results of his pioneering an emotional marker in the brain of the con-
study that used the latest in brain sumer. “Find an emotional connection to a
scan technology to peer into the brand. Every ad, everything you do should
minds of over 2,000 people from be able to survive without the logo. Other-
around the world. The CEOs of Mc- wise, we can’t cut through the clutter.”
Donald’s, Mattel, LEGO and Disney
have all endorsed Lindstrom ’s work
and acknowledge that his visionary
branding principles and practices
are the drivers of sales and profits,
and consequently the centerpieces
of business.

capture consumers’ attention in the first place. Look-


ing for interesting changes in different regions of the
brain can help marketers map whatever product or
service they’re attempting to market in a way that in-
tersects favorably with the sensory computations of the
brain and emotional responses to marketing stimuli.

In this way, Lindstrom said, marketers can be-


gin to truly understand the answer to this ques- A Glimpse: Ground-breaking Study
tion: “What’s going on in his or her mind?” And, in Neuromarketing
“What does brand mean?”
In Buyology, Lindstrom presents his
Brands that Inhabit findings from a three-year, seven-mil-
Your Subconscious lion-dollar neuromarketing study. With
the most innovative technology he
Powerful subliminal advertising is one of the peered inside the brains of 2,000 vol-
hallmarks of a great brand, Lindstrom assert- unteers from around the world as they
ed. Think of this as branding without the logo. encountered ads, logos, commercials,
Branding without words. Lindstrom asked, brands and products, giving us real
“Can I smash your brand?” That is, can I trig- answers as to what drives us to buy a
ger an emotional marker in the customer’s mind
particular product.
merely by presenting the same color patterns or
images the consumer would expect to see inte-
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
18

JOSEPH GRENNY
Influence: ple monetarily by charging them to use the rest-
room on the plane or subconsciously by playing
waterfall sounds in the boarding area?”
The Power to Execute
By examining your own response, Grenny said
on Strategy you can determine what aspects of influence you
tend to rely on and you may also see some gaps in
your thinking. Grenny explains in his latest book
Change: The Biggest Obstacle Influencer: The Power to Change Anything that there are
two big reasons people do what they do: because
T here were tremendous learning opportunities
at the World Business Forum, but, warned Jo-
seph Grenny, the delegates were likely to confront
they want to do something (motivation) and be-
cause they are able to do something (ability).
“Leaders tend to develop motivational strategies
resistance at the office when they attempted to im-
that do little on the ability side,” said Grenny.
plement new ideas and strategies.
“They also tend not to understand that there are
three types of motivation and ability: personal,
“The challenge begins when you return to the office
social and structural.”
and have to encounter human beings,” said the busi-
ness strategist and bestselling author, “human be-
ings who are often unwilling to change.” Resistance
The Two Key Factors in Effective
to change is such a frequently-encountered problem.
Change

How to Determine Your Personal Strategy: What should we do? “There’s no


Theory of Influence strategy so brilliant that people can’t render
it worthless.”(Grenny’s Law of Leadership)
To gain some insight into your own theory of
influence, Grenny posed an influence problem:
Influence: How do I get everyone to do it?
“You’re the manager at Air Nippon airways. If
“Everybody in this room has a theory of in-
passengers used the restroom before boarding
the plane, they could lighten the load by 240 fluence but most can’t articulate what that
pounds, reduce the carbon footprint and reduce theory actually is. And when we fail to ex-
fuel and materials costs. How do you get that to ecute, we’re unable to improve upon our
happen? Is it your inclination to influence peo- own flawed theory.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
19
Six Sources of Influence At-Home Experiment
on Influence
Grenny’s premise is that there are six sources of influ-
ence, and leaders who understand behavior from each All six of these factors affect most any behavior,
source of influence can develop the most effective and Grenny and his researchers found. As a consultant
successful influence strategies. “Our research con- to executives from a diverse range of the Fortune
firms that leaders who use all six of these sources of 500, Grenny became interested in taking an ana-
influence are ten times more likely to secure change,” lytical look at how to change behaviors and drew on
Grenny comments. “One way leaders can help people the reservoirs of social science to observe and test be-
make an experiential linkage between the behavior haviors. During his presentation, he shared a video
that is being asked of them and their own core values, where his 12-year-old son created an experiment fo-
is to use engaging stories or recreate powerful person- cused on rewarding younger children for NOT eat-
al experiences.” It’s not always comfortable to do, but ing a marshmallow placed on their plate. If the kids
it does work, he notes. had enough willpower to avoid eating the marshmal-
low for 15 minutes, they would be rewarded with a
second marshmallow. The initial results found that
most of the kids could not delay their gratification
Motivation Ability
long enough and snatched up the first marshmal-
low—forgoing the reward. But when Grenny’s son
1 2 taught the kids a few skills to avoid temptation, his
Personal

“subjects” were much more able to delay gratification


Make the
Undesirable
and earn their reward. This experiment proved that
Surpass
Desirable Your Limits influencing the second source of influence results in
a change of behavior.

3 4
Social

Harness Peer Find Strength in


Pressure Numbers Meet the Speaker
5Design Rewards 6
Structural

A business strategy expert, Joseph


and Demand Change the Grenny has worked with teams from
Accountability Environment IBM, Sprint, and McGraw-Hill, among
others. Over the past 20 years Gren-
ny has taught and advised more than
• Source 1: Personal motivation – do I want 100,000 leaders all over the world. He
to do it? is co-author of three New York Times
• Source 2: Personal ability – can I do it? bestsellers, including Influencer: The
• Source 3: Social motivation – are others Power to Change Anything. He has
encouraging me to do it? been cited in dozens of newspapers
• Source 4: Social ability – are others helping including The New York Times, Wash-
me to do it? ington Post, and the Wall Street Jour-
• Source 5: Structural motivation – is the nal. Grenny has also spoken to organi-
environment right for me to do it? zations including NASA, the American
• Source 6: Structural ability – does the Bankers Association, and the American
environment support me doing it? Society of Training and Development.
L E A D E R S H I P P E R F O R M A N C E P E O P L E
20

DAVID GERGEN
much harder to lead institutions because of the
Leadership: extensive blogosphere that exists today. “People
are spreading rumors, lies and vicious com-
After the Storm ments to the point where they (the administra-
tion) feel like they are under assault. It’s greatly
disturbing,” this Washington insider told Ger-
gen. Gergen said ideally, key staff should deal
The Changing Role of the Leader with the onslaught of information and the CEO
should focus on running the business.

T he role of the leader is very different today, said


David Gergen, former advisor to Presidents
Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. “Many of us grew
That buffer space between the barrage of infor-
mation and the work at hand is also important.
up at a time when a CEO or a General Patton was a Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, tends to
lone individual who sent down messages from Mount do all his knowledge-gathering and then go off
Olympus,” he recalled in an onstage interview with to contemplate.
former CNN correspondent Rusty Dornin.


“It’s no longer possible to get results by ordering
people around. In a crisis you have to have command If you have a sense where
and control, but, in general you have to be able to you want to go and you’re out
influence and persuade. Even young officers have to
see if you’re going to take the bullet,” Gergen said of sync, you need time
to highlight why he believes human resources are the
most valuable thing in any company.
to consider it a bit more.”

Leadership in a Connected Age


While General Patton was sending messages out,
today’s leaders are managing a constant two-way
stream of information, which could jeopardize
leadership effectiveness. Gergen used General
David Petraeus as one example of a leader who has
mastered virtual connection and communication.
“You can write him on a BlackBerry and you’ll
get an answer within an hour,” said Gergen of
Petraeus. “He is open to feedback and conversa-
tions from the troops. He doesn’t use it to manage
or lead but to stay informed and connected.”

However, Gergen continued, there’s a dan-


ger in being connected to the volumes of elec-
tronic information. Gergen recalled the advice
of a friend who served in both the Clinton and
Obama administrations. The friend said it is so
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
21
ing the War. The British were in desperate need of
destroyers. Everyone thought Roosevelt was going
to have all these meetings and instead he took a few
days to go sailing on the Chesapeake. That’s when
he came up with the ‘Lend Lease’ idea.”

The world is speeding up and leaders don’t have


that luxury of time anymore. Whereas Roosevelt
took an extra day in Morocco, Gergen recalled
Successful Communication, a trip he took to the Middle East with President
Bill Clinton to see the King of Morocco. “We flew
Past and Present into Morocco at 2am; had coffee with the King un-
til 4:30; and flew right back. I asked the President
Gergen explained how slowing the pace led to a whether he thought it was wise to be moving at this
historic decision and cemented the friendship pace and making decisions so quickly. He didn’t even
between President Franklin Roosevelt and Brit- spend a day in Morocco. He said he had no choice.”
ish Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “In World
War II, Roosevelt went by ship to Morocco and
Churchill persuaded him to take an extra day to The Importance of a Future
see the most beautiful sunset at the top of a moun- with Better Leadership


tain in Marrakech.” Later that bond contributed to
some instantaneous and critical decision-making.
It’s a question of leadership
That bonding and understanding of your partner response.”
is very important, continued Gergen, as is the time
to reflect. “Roosevelt had to make a decision dur- To make a first class country, Gergen urged leaders
to identify the best successors and empower them,
and to look for diversity of opinion because there
is a danger in insulated thinking.
Meet the Speaker When looking ahead, Gergen predicted strong
ties will develop between social responsibil-
Commentator, editor, teacher, public ity as a leadership priority and the sustainable
servant, best-selling author and ad- health of the U.S. economy. “The Chinese are
visor to presidents for 30 years, Da- eating our lunch on renewable energy. We in-
vid Gergen has been an active par- vent the solar panels, and they are being built
ticipant in American national life. He in China. They provide cheaper labor and
has served as advisor to Presidents also the subsidies are in violation of the World
Trade Organization, yet we haven’t turned the
Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.
screws on them,” explained Gergen.
He is a Professor of Public Service
and Director of the Center for Public He ended with a rallying call to the government
Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy and business communities. “China created one
School, as well as is Sr. Political Ana- million jobs and our factories are shutting
lyst for CNN and Editor-At-Large for down. This country will be in big trouble. Our
US News and World Report. biggest challenge is whether the U.S. is going
to go into decline or not. It’s a question of
leadership response.”
E C O N O M Y T R E N D S C H A N G E
22

STEVE LEVITT
Freakonomics What Business Leaders
An Unlikely Success Story Can Learn from Professors

D id you hear the story of how seven million


American children vanished overnight and
the IRS employee who was behind it all?
As a tenured professor, Levitt acknowledged,
he is committed to spend 60 hours a year in
the classroom. Otherwise, he said, he’s free
to conduct research, to publish and to pursue
For Steve Levitt, author of Freakonomics and academic questions with a probing, academic
a professor in the University of Chicago’s Eco- curiosity. Academics, he added, are happy to
nomics Department, one IRS employee’s idea admit they don’t know the answer to a ques-
to require taxpayers to report the Social Secu- tion, but strive to learn how to figure it out.
rity numbers of children they claimed as depen-
dents on their tax forms not only outed a lot of In business, on the other hand, leaders have
tax cheats, but also added $20 billion into the customers to satisfy, reports to file and any
United States Treasury. number of fires to put out. Businesses also
make major decisions with their own data or
“He didn’t get a raise. Didn’t get a promotion. with bad data and don’t get good feedback. Sel-
Didn’t get a parade,” Levitt said. “He had a dom, if ever, Levitt said, does the business or
great idea…but he got no rewards, either social the manager look back on past decisions and
or financial.” test the validity of the data and influences that
led to them.
Sometimes, it seems, a single individual with
no grand plan beyond making a process work


better and more consistently can usher in such
a profound change that it makes a huge finan- I never hear anyone in business
cial impact. And sometimes, for some of those
same innovators, the rewards that follow are all
say they don’t know
self-endowed. the answers to questions.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
23
Businesses, and business leaders, Levitt said,
would be wise to utter some acknowledge-
ment of their uncertainty, their lack of data,
“ For the firm that can create
a culture of experimentation…
and their lack of answers at least once a day. I think there’s tremendous
“People won’t run an experiment because it’s
an admission they don’t know the answers to opportunity in that.”
questions. If you don’t work at changing that,
you can never get better,” Levitt said.

In today’s business environment, business leaders


are faced with incredible uncertainties, a lack of
Meet the Speaker
data and a set of business conditions and competi-
tive challenges that are opaque if anything. That’s Steven D. Levitt is the author (with
why it’s more important now than ever before Stephen Dubner) of the bestseller
to gain the clarity for decision-making that only Freakonomics and its highly antici-
comes with intense research of complex business pated follow-up Superfreakonom-
problems and the willingness to let the answers be ics. Originally published in the U.S.
as they may.
in 2005, Freakonomics instantly be-
came a cultural phenomenon with
more than 4 million copies sold
worldwide in more than 30 languag-
es and a 2-year track record on The
New York Times Bestseller List. He is
a tenured professor in the University
of Chicago’s economics department
and is the recipient of the American
Economic Association’s prestigious
John Bates Clark Medal, given to the
country’s best economist under 40.

A Culture of Experimentation
Sometimes, the best business decisions require
some experimenting to understand their root
causes and the various influences that might
ultimately shape the business return on in-
vestment. Allowing that kind of autonomy and
risk-taking within the enterprise can lead to
new discoveries, and results once unimagined
or thought unrealistic.

“For the firm that can create a culture of ex-


perimentation…I think there’s tremendous
opportunity in that,” Levitt added.
E C O N O M Y T R E N D S C H A N G E
24

JOSEPH STIGLITZ
The Economy:
A New Agenda The Excessive
Consumerism Paradox
On the Economy The paradox involving the American consumer, Sti-
glitz reflected, was that at a time when household sav-

F rom the macroeconomic lens of Nobel Prize


winner and professor Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, author
of Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World
ings were at zero near the start of the recession, the
government was soon after encouraging people to
consume and spend again, when that excessive con-
Economy, “We’re not out of the woods.” sumerism contributed in part to the real estate bubble.

Stiglitz said he expects the U.S. economy to enter Stiglitz said there are plenty of wise investments the U.S.
what he termed “a Japanese-style malaise” – a very government could make in the education system and
long period of slow economic growth – unless the the country’s infrastructure, which he said needs to be
federal government takes strong action. retrofitted to acknowledge and reduce global warming.

“Government,” Stiglitz said, “underestimated the


failings of the economy before the crisis. Right
Meet the Speaker now, they would say they’re politically constrained.
The time to move was right after the election where
Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the you had enormous amount of political power.”
Nobel Prize in Economics in Oc-
tober 2001 by the Royal Swedish A Double Dip?
Academy of Sciences. Stiglitz, for-
mer chief economist at the World So, Stiglitz posited, “Could we see another reces-
Bank, has appointments at Colum- sion?” Well, it depends. Much of the answer to
that question – one on the lips of a lot of business
bia’s School of International and
leaders – depends on the effectiveness and scope
Public Affairs (SIPA), the Economics
of European austerity programs and whether there
Department of the Graduate School are any currency wars on the horizon.
of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate
School of Business. Internationally rec- Stiglitz explained that the U.S. economy has to
ognized as one of the leading econ- grow at a pace of three to four percent in order
omists of his generation, Stiglitz is to create enough jobs, but most forecasts for eco-
a member of the advisory team to nomic growth are well below that. Right now, he
the United States Government, and added, “One of six Americans who would like a
full-time job can’t get one.” And unless the econo-
has played a large role in advising
my grows at that benchmark three to four percent,
recent administrations. we should expect unemployment to hang at or just
below 10 percent, at least for the next year or two.
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
25

“ If you’re long-term
unemployed, getting back in
the workforce is very difficult.
We’re weakening our human
capital. That’s going to make
it difficult to get back to
a robust economy.”

Cautious Hope:
Challenges Ahead
Despite the challenges we face, however, Stiglitz said
the U.S. “is in a lucky position.” The government
can borrow at close to zero in the near term. It can
borrow and realize likely big returns of 15 percent
on its investments. But, he added, the deficit hawks
in Washington say the economy is already too far in
debt, so the legislative paralysis goes on.

Stiglitz credited the Federal Reserve for bringing


the U.S. economy back from the brink of collapse.
However, he added, “The way they did it was not
on the course for a strong, sustained recovery. We
are not on the course for a strong recovery.”

In the short-term, he added, “Companies don’t


know where the economy is going and whether
we’re going to get going anytime soon.” As a result,
companies continue to do more with less. Now, it’s
up to the federal government to take things into
its own hands. “If we don’t do the right things, it
could be a lot worse.”

Stiglitz on The State of the Economy Post-Crisis


“It’s clear the [global financial] crisis marks a major change. The world after the crisis is going to
be different than the world before the crisis,” Stiglitz said. There has been a global shift. Ideas have
changed. Yet, he added, “There are too many people who want to go back to the world as it was before
the crisis. The first stimulus did work. The problem was that it was too small, not as well designed as it
should have been. It’s very clear that with the end of the stimulus the economy is getting weaker, and
something else needs to be done.”
E C O N O M Y T R E N D S C H A N G E
26

AL GORE
Global Affairs:
The New Global Deal

How are you Feeling?

T he 45th Vice President of the United States be-


gan with a positive remark about the economy,
but then quickly put it in perspective with an an- any crisis. The climate crisis is one of the most
ecdote from the late Grand Ole Opry comedienne dangerous that we face. It also shows the biggest
Minnie Pearl of a farmer who was involved in a car opportunity we have ever had.”
accident. When the farmer went to court to sue for
damages, the lawyer asked him whether it was true While he avoided reopening the debate on rea-
he said he felt fine right after the accident. sons for invading Iraq, Gore began by affirming
the global economy’s dependence on an oil market
The farmer began to tell a long, involved story of dominated by the Persian Gulf, and “the thought
the events of the car accident, culminating with the of it being disrupted or under control of those
other vehicle hitting him and his cow. When the who could use it as a geopolitical weapon is some-
police arrived on the scene, they saw the injured thing not easily dismissed.”
cow and mercifully shot him. “So when the police
asked the farmer how he felt,” said Gore, “he said, Abandoning the 100-year-old polluting technol-
‘I feel fine.’ Many of us are feeling like that.” ogies of the past to prepare for a sustainable 21st
century could break our dependence, put people
The former Vice President, or as he affably to work and save the economy, asserts Gore, but
said, once known as “the next President of the we collectively suffer from inertia, which works
United States” expertly connected the dots be- as the enemy of change. Partially, he attributes
tween the climate crisis, sustainable capitalism the inertia to our collective inability to imagine
and opportunity for global environmental and something that’s unprecedented. “We have a ten-
economic improvement. dency to think ‘if it didn’t happen in the past, it’s
not likely to happen in the future.’ We never had
to think about the relationship between us and
Danger and Opportunity the environment.”
“The climate crisis is the biggest challenge to
sustainable capitalism and our way of life,” said Contributors to the Current Crisis
Gore. “But I want to begin with the word ‘cri-
sis.’ In English and Spanish the word ‘crisis’ is Gore cites three major contributors to the climate
a single word. In Chinese or Japanese it is two crisis: the global population explosion, which tax-
characters that when put together show ‘crisis.’ es resources; the dramatic expansion of the power-
The first character is ‘danger’ and the second is draining technologies we use; and finally, the way
‘opportunity.’ It’s a better way of thinking about we think about capitalism.
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
27
“The population of the earth has quadrupled. In


my lifetime – 62 years – we’ve gone from two bil-
lion people to 6.8 billion. I’ll see it go to nine
I said this is unprecedented
billion.” Gore attributes the increase in popula- so it’s hard to get a grip. It’s
tion to the education of girls, the empowerment
of women, fertility management, and higher child global, gradual and there’s a
survival rates. time lag.”
“Capitalism is the most efficient form of organizing
economic activity the world has ever seen. It unlocks
the human potential. It has a set of organic and
ubiquitous incentives. It’s great that capitalism is
our system,” asserted the Nobel Prize winner; how-
Meet the Speaker
ever, he argued, it is long past time to address the
system’s structural problems citing the “short-term Vice President of the United States,
thinking” that recently brought down the financial congressman, Vietnam veteran and
system and how that same “lack of vision” prevents journalist, Al Gore is also one of the
long-range environmental solution planning. most powerful champions of environ-
mental awareness today. In 2007 he

“ We’re entering a period


of consequences, potentially
was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize on Climate Change. His criti-
cally acclaimed documentary An In-
leading to eventual collapse.” convenient Truth - with its companion
book - continues to make headlines
all over the world. Gore´s latest book,
Disinformation Campaign Our Choice, proposes solutions to the
global climate crisis.
Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg
News Energy Finance, asked Gore during the
interview that followed, why there was so much
polarization around global warming in the U.S.
“There is a disinformation campaign going on,” Communication has transformed in the U.S.,
Gore said. “Large carbon polluters spend money particularly in the last decade, and the informa-
to create false doubts on things that are real. The tion marketplace is not as friendly to ideas, Gore
ship is bearing down, but large carbon polluters feels, and 80 percent of political campaign money
are in the boat saying it’s not real.” goes to 30-second television commercials. “When
a proposal to solve climate crisis is presented, the
opposition dominates the conversation. The hope
is with bloggers; they’re a new medium that soon
will rival the importance of television.”

Gore urged World Business Forum delegates to af-


fect change through political action, and pressure
the Senate to release its use of filibusters to place
a stranglehold on policies, which, he said, are in-
fluenced by special interest groups. “It’s important
to change light bulbs, but it’s more important to
change the laws.”
E C O N O M Y T R E N D S C H A N G E
28

A.G. LAFLEY
Customer Centric Growth
create even more value for our current users and
A Great Leader Makes Tough to bring in new users. New users are incredibly
Decisions important. We estimated we served two billion of
the nearly seven billion people in the world. We

L eadership is about making difficult choices,


and when former Procter & Gamble chief
A.G. Lafley had to sacrifice two beloved brands
then doubled the number of customers to four
billion in less than a decade. We want to serve an-
other billion in the next five years.”
– Noxzema and Clearasil – he equated it to let-


ting go of his children, profitable ones at that.
But if the products are not part of a company’s
First and foremost,
growth strategy and therefore can’t capture a growth ought to be
market-leading position, human and opera-
tional resources have to be focused elsewhere, customer-centered.”
he said in a conversation on stage with Harvard
Business Review editor Karen Dillon. Learning from the Past
Companies can better turn their attention to Procter & Gamble’s longevity hinges on its ability
innovation when not maintaining products on to anticipate market changes in the future while
“life support.” P&G acquired the 1500-product learning from the missteps of the past. Lafley said
Max Factor color cosmetics line in the 1990s. he spends time evaluating new inventions that
The P&G team ranked them by sales, profit and could threaten brands, and even categories. He
margin, discontinued the poorest performers also evaluates new inventions P&G could partner
and developed new offerings that were ultimate- with to improve P&G products for more custom-
ly much more profitable and successful. ers. Said another way, new inventions can be
both threats and opportunities.
Innovation has to be the centerpiece for a busi-
ness to thrive for close to two centuries, as P&G Lafley’s two big “do-overs” show how instinct plays
has, and in the first decade of 2000, Lafley said, a role in CEO leadership and how even a successful
the business grew organically five to six percent on leader sometimes cannot close a deal. Lafley said,
brand and product innovation alone. “That brand “P&G was ready to swap one of its unreleased phar-
and product innovation had two intentions: to maceutical drugs for Claritin, when at the last minute
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
29
the head of P&G Health Care advised him not to do
it. Every bone in my body said we should go ahead,
but I deferred to experience and expertise. In hind-
sight, I shouldn’t have.” Claritin is now the second
largest over-the-counter drug introduced over the
last decade. (P&G’s Prilosec was the largest.)

Secondly, after a great acquisition with Gillette,


P&G had an opportunity for another large deal,
but couldn’t make it happen. “There were three
owners. I had the deal done with the majority
owner, but couldn’t get it done with either of the
minority owners.”

Customer-Centric Growth

The purpose of any business is to create a


customer, and ideally at P&G, to create “cus-
tomers for life.” Lafley said, as CEO, he tried to
set the example by gaining as much informa-
tion and understanding about customers as
possible. “I went into customers’ homes, and
I shopped with them. I was also doing “moth-
er-in-law research.” I had to be in touch and
know her needs and wants better than our
Meet the Speaker competitors.” Customers’ needs and wants
are the driving force behind P&G’s innovation.
A.G. Lafley is the former Chairman of
the Board, President and Chief Ex-
ecutive Officer of Procter & Gamble,
the world’s largest consumer goods
Game-Changing Innovation
company. Under his leadership, P&G
During economic instability, companies are more
focused on consumer-driven innova- likely to play it safe rather than invest in risky in-
tion and consistent, reliable, sustain- novation, yet P&G’s longevity is a perfect example
able growth. With Lafley at the helm, of weathering every external condition and thriv-
sales doubled, profits quadrupled, ing. For those without authority or executive spon-
and the Company’s market value in- sorship to initiate or champion customer-centric
creased by over $100 billion dollars. innovation, Lafley advised World Business Forum
He has been honored with some of delegates, “Just do it. Truly, just do it. Nobody
told me to watch people and learn why people do
the highest recognitions in business,
what they do; I decided to just do it. Get your cus-
including Chief Executive Magazine’s tomer involved in co-designing and co-creating
CEO of the Year, the CEO Diversity new products and services and ask for forgiveness
Leadership Award, and the Peterson later. Charge ahead and find someone to let you
Award for Business Statesmanship. run your own experiment.”
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
30

RENÉE MAUBORGNE
Strategy: How to Execute Creative Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy and So, how will we close the gap between the aspira-
tions of people and our ability to support them
the Challenge of Creativity without creative shifts? “Simply making incremen-
tal improvements and enhancing productivity will
not allow us to multiply the resources that we have
New Opportunities in an on this planet to make it sustainable for all of us. It’s
Uncertain Economy going to be the creativity of our strategic thinking
that will allow us to overcome and shape these very

R enée Mauborgne, one of the most influen-


tial business thinkers today, offered advice
strained structural conditions that are mounting.
That is the essence of blue ocean strategy.” And this
that’s as sound in today’s uncertain times as it is true for companies to meet the challenges they
is when market trends are headed up. In fact, it face in both developed and developing nations.
could be even more compelling in unfavorable,


strained environments than in times of solid
prosperity. The case for creativity is undeniable. Without innovative break-
In such a world, she questions where manage-
ment should spend its time – on enhancing
through products we [in the
productivity or on enhancing creativity? On developed world] won’t be
the one hand, the importance of optimizing
asset utilization, costs, quality, cycle time and able to command export
logistics is critical to today’s enterprise. But markets as we used to; we
growth, new business development, innovation
and future strategy are crucial as well. In fact, will have nothing new to sell
Mauborgne notes that the more senior the posi-
tion, the more important the role as steward of
abroad, and we’ll increasingly
the future. “The higher up you go – the more lose our domestic market to
money you make – the more our role as leaders
of the organization is building the future of our low cost rivals who have iden-
companies.” And, she asserts, the role of cre- tical offerings to ours. So blue
ativity is crucial not just for companies to build
their future but for solutions to the world’s ocean strategy and creativity
macroeconomic challenges – like energy, water,
and pollution – where big trends demand cre-
matter centrally to companies
ative solutions by businesses to be met. in the developed world.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
31

Meet the Speaker How to overcome the core hurdles and


get started right away:

Renée Mauborgne is the INSEAD Dis-


• Cognitive hurdle: Dig in and address the
tinguished Fellow and Affiliate Profes-
response “we don’t need to change.” Use
sor of Strategy at INSEAD, (the world’s
harsh operational and market realities to
second largest business school). She
render the status quo indefensible.
is also Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue
Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontaineb-
• Overcome limited resources: Redirect re-
leau, France. Mauborgne is a member
sources from cold spots. Uncover the ar-
of President Obama’s Board of Advi-
eas of highest consumption of resources
sors on Historically Black Colleges
that add no value. These are your cold
and Universities (HBCUs) and a Fellow
spots. Find them; they exist in every or-
of the World Economic Forum.
ganization. Then redirect resources from
She is the co-author of the international
cold spots to the hotspots, the areas that
bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy: How to
have the greatest impact on performance
Create Uncontested Market Space and
in your blue ocean strategy.
Make the Competition Irrelevant (Har-
vard Business School Press, 2005).
• Motivational hurdle: Find out who are the
kingpins and bring them into the strategy
process. Engage these key influencers
Blue Ocean Strategy with fair process. Fair process is defined
as engagement, explanation, and expec-
Mauborgne challenged the audience to reflect on tation clarity. Leverage the influence and
their own business to see if blue ocean strategy was respect they garner in the organization to
right for them asking if they faced heightened com-
motivate the rank and file to effectuate the
petition, dwindling profit margins, and increasingly
blue ocean strategic shift.
commodity-type competition. “How will you answer
these questions? If you are like most companies, you
are stuck in a red ocean. Efficiency alone – produc- • Political hurdle: Recruit a consigliore. Find
tivity gains – will not get you out of that. Only the out who is likely to fight a new strategy
creativity of your strategic thinking will allow you to and who the big enthusiasts are in sup-
shape and overcome these unfavorable conditions. So port of it. Create a coalition of angels; cir-
strategy needs to go beyond just reaching the industry cle the devils so their power is squelched.
best practice threshold by improving productivity.”
Blue ocean strategy is key as it pushes the creativity
frontier of new demand and shapes existing unfavor-
able structural conditions into new frontiers, where
markets are created and demand is strong.

Blue ocean strategy is the bridge that links creative


ideas to commercial success. It addresses both effec-
tive strategy formulation and execution and is appli-
cable across for-profit, not-for-profit and govern-
ment sectors.
S T R AT E G Y I N N O VAT I O N C O M M U N I C AT I O N
32

VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN
Featuring Brian Goldner

Innovation:
A Strategy for
Creating the Future

Plan for the Future Now

B
usiness strategist Vijay Govindarajan opens
a world of opportunities and innovations
with one probing question: “How are you go-
ing to create your future in 2030?”

The key, said the professor from the Tuck


School of Business at Dartmouth, is less about
what your enterprise actually does in the year
2030 and more about what it will do today that
will ultimately intersect with business strategy
20 years from now.

To build an effective business strategy for


2030, Govindarajan explained, one must excel
at three things: managing the present, selec-
tively forgetting the past and creating the fu-
ture. The energy and focus your organization
applies to each of those business mandates will
predetermine its success in the future.

Strategy as Defined by V.G.


“How do you create the future while managing the present?” Govindarajan said. How an enter-
prise reacts to linear changes in the competitive marketplace, whether it exploits opportunities
in the global economy, and what it learns from customers may all combine to give a business a
competitive edge that will enable it to reach its long-term goals.
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
33

Meet the Speaker


Vijay Govindarajan is widely regarded
as one of the world’s leading experts on
strategy and innovation. He has been
named on a series of lists by influen-
tial publications including: Outstanding
Faculty and Top Ten Business School
Professor in Corporate Executive Edu-
cation by Bloomberg BusinessWeek;
Top Five Most Respected Executive
Coaches on Strategy, by Forbes; and
Top 50 Management Thinkers, by The
London Times. He has published seven
books, including the international best-


seller Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators.
The future is not about
what you do in the future.
The future is now.”
well-known brands as Transformers, Monopo-
ly, Nerf, and now, Hasbro Studios, all included
A Guest Appearance: Hasbro in a total of over 1,500 product brands in the
company’s portfolio.
Offering an example of this kind of enterprise de-
cision-making, Govindarajan introduced Hasbro Hasbro’s latest investment comes in the form
CEO Brian Goldner, who has led its transforma- of a new television network, The Hub, which
tion, as the latter explained, “from a toy and game launched on October 10, 2010 and has a vari-
company to a branded play company.” ety of content partners collaborating to deliver
new entertainment options to a global audi-
Hasbro, Goldner said, was founded in 1923, ence around the clock.
placed the first-ever toy commercial on tele-
vision when it promoted its Mr. Potato Head Govindarajan said Hasbro is an example of a
in 1952, and grew through its acquisitions of company that was willing to create a compel-
Playskool and Milton Bradley in the 1980s. ling vision of its future and make the decisions
necessary to make it a reality – an example that
Yet the company needed a new vision, Goldner can, and should, inspire every business leader
said, and so it decided to “re-imagine, reinvent in times like these. “The future is not about
and reignite” its brands. Today, that transfor- what you do in the future,” Govindarajan said.
mation has put Hasbro in the lead with such “The future is now.”
L E A D E R S H I P P E R F O R M A N C E P E O P L E
34

NANDO PARRADO
Crisis Management
Effective Leadership Amidst Chaos
Where Catastrophe Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long
and Leadership Intersect Trek Home. In the ensuing 38 years he has built and
owned six successful companies and is frequently

F or Nando Parrado, it is not always the plan asked to speak to corporate teams telling the story
for effectiveness or leadership that emerges in of the ordeal and the lessons learned.
a crisis. You can plan as much as you like, he has
said. But in the midst of a crisis, it is your instinct A Desire to Live
and your will that drives the moment-by-moment
choices you make. His outlook, of course, is the result of the har-
rowing 72 days that he fought for his life and
Fernando (Nando) Parrado is one of the survi- the lives of his teammates in the tragic crash
vors of the airplane crash of Uruguayan Air Force in which his mother and sister died; he him-
flight 571 in the Andes in 1972 - one of the most self woke from a coma; survived an avalanche
compelling survival stories ever. After the crash which killed other early survivors; and faced
and the subsequent miraculous survival of 16 of decisions none of us ever want to face – all
the 45 passengers and crew, he helped publish the the while knowing that the search parties had
bestselling book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. stopped looking, and the world believed they
In 2006, he co-wrote the New York Times bestseller, were dead.

Words of Advice from a Survivor


“I’ve run companies, but there are no challenges in business – only issues. Forget about theory.
Reality changes the perspectives you have. You don’t know what you will do until you have to do
something, and sometimes you have to do and say things you never think you would do.”
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
35
“You don’t know what facets of your character
you have” until you are faced with a seemingly
hopeless challenge, Parrado told the audience.
Meet the Speaker
“Every decision is measured in terms of life
Fernando Parrado is one of the survi-
and death. You will be elevated to the greatest
heights and descend in to the worst depths.” vors of the airplane crash of Uruguay-
In those 72 days, Parrado said he and his team- an Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes
mates “achieved excellence” in each of the sub- in 1972 - one of the greatest survival
jects: leadership, teamwork, making decisions, stories ever. After the accident, he
facing crises, innovation. We linked it all to- helped publish the bestselling books
gether in ways that allowed us to survive.” Alive: The Story of the Andes Sur-
vivors and Miracle in the Andes: 72
In Parrado’s powerful own words, he told the
Days on the Mountain and My Long
story of when the rugby team and his mother
and sister full of triumphant joy boarded the Trek Home. Parrado shares his story
flight, their whole lives ahead of them. In just and the powerful and emotive lessons
moments the plane crashed and he entered on leadership, teamwork, and crisis
into a coma. He then witnessed the death of his management he dramatically learned
mother and sister, and an avalanche that killed through his ordeal with many of to-
two more teammates including the team cap- day’s leading companies.
tain who had been valiant in his young leader-
ship just after the crash.

Next the team had to make crucial decisions, all “You will understand what I learned in the cold
the while knowing from the last few moments snow of the Andes,” Parrado concluded “is that
of power on the airplane’s radio that the search life is not measured by the breaths you take but
had been called off. Much of the memory in in the moments that take your breath away and
the general public has focused on the survivors’ how the people you love make up the most im-
decisions to use portions of the dead bodies portant moments.”
for nourishment as they considered how and if
they might survive. “Because you never know what will happen tomorrow.”


“I will die, but I will not die here.”
You will understand what I
It was Parrado and one teammate who walked away learned in the cold snow of the
from the fuselage and the team believing they
might be just a few days away from civilization over Andes is that life is not measured
a mountain. In four days they arrived at the top,
and Parrado saw a vast horizon of nothingness. No
by the breaths you take but in
signs of civilization in any direction. They contin- the moments that take your
ued another six days. Finally, they were low enough
to encounter a man on a horse, and were eventu- breath away and how the
ally able to lead a helicopter to the crash site, sav- people you love make up the
ing the other survivors.
most important moments…
“I said, ‘I will die, but I will not die here,’” Par-
rado recalls thinking at the 18,000 foot top of that
Because you never know what
mountain. “I decided I wanted to die walking.” will happen tomorrow.”
S T R A T E G Y I N N O V A T I O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
36

JAMES CAMERON
Creativity: The Importance
The Power of Innovation of Leadership Style
and Passion C an someone who pushed teams to great
achievements through a demanding lead-
ership style reform and get the same high-
quality results? Filmmaker James Cameron
confessed he had to adapt his leadership style
from dictatorial to one that was more respect-
ful and empowering. “I don’t think I was always
a good leader where I worked with people to
get the best out of them,” said the creator of
Avatar, adding that these skills weren’t innate
for him, and he had to be open to learning so
he wouldn’t seem phony.

Meet the Speaker


James Cameron is a renowned film
writer, producer and director whose
films have blazed new trails in visual
effects and set numerous perfor-
mance records both domestically and
abroad. His 1984 film, The Termina-
tor became an unexpected box office
hit and made the TIME magazine ten
best of the year list. Cameron has
broken new ground in cinematogra-
phy through creating unprecedented
filming, lighting and robotic equip-
ment, as well as developing new
techniques and production technolo-
gy. His innovations in filmmaking and
production have perpetually changed
the cinematic landscape.
Executive Summary | WBF 2010
37
How Cameron´s Leadership
Made Avatar a Success “ We knew it was a difficult
sell...non-human characters
Now, when conflict arises, Cameron’s incli- played by actors you’d never
nation is to solve the problem, rather than see. It was harder to commu-
make a recriminating moment out of it, he
told Bloomberg anchor Betty Liu during an nicate to investors who had
onstage interview. “I turn it back on myself. to write this enormous check.
Did I hire the right person? Yes. Then maybe
I didn’t communicate it well or they didn’t un- We gave international market-
derstand.” This new leadership style lent Ava-
tar a sense of fun, authorship and ownership in ing people a tour because we
an environment where people felt like they had knew it would translate well
permission to make mistakes but were now less
likely to do so. to different cultures. The feed-
back from them helped get the
Putting the right cast, technical and creative
teams together is critical for Cameron. Blend- green light decision from Fox.”
ing the people he already knows he can count
on with new recruits who can push and chal-
lenge him has become his first step. Avatar op-
erated more like a family than a conventional
business team, he explained, binding the team
together for 4½ years – longer than most film
productions. Managing the stress, keeping up
morale and maintaining the enthusiasm over
this extended length of time was difficult, par-
ticularly when people worked all hours and had
crises of faith they couldn’t overcome the ob-
stacles ahead.
Perseverance
and Patience Pay Off
The Execution The investment in people, technology and capital
of a Creative Vision resources plus energy and time mounted in the
high-risk environment. From concept to screen
Added to the mix was a game-changing vision took 15 years, although there was a decade when
that was nearly unexplainable, and therefore, the project was untouched, the filmmaker said.
harder to get people on board. Innovation drove He was 3½ years into the project before seeing the
the movie with Cameron’s intent from the begin- first shot. “I don’t think you ever know if some-
ning to change the digital creation of characters. thing is going to be a hit. It’s hard to know. I knew
“The risks of doing something new with Avatar we were doing something unique. There were risks
was not as great as not doing something new that involved in trying all of these new things. The big-
would excite audiences,” and he wanted to push gest risk is not to be bold. You have to break away
his team to develop the movie technology wave of from the pack. Audiences are jaded. It must be the
the future. One revolutionary innovation – the MUST SEE film of that culture.” The reward was
enhanced 3D technology – wasn’t enough, said all the sweeter, he noted, because of his self-stated
Cameron, and creating the 10 foot tall people was propensity to set “goals ridiculously high and fail at
an even harder invention. a level higher than everyone else.”
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